24" gaming LCD

[ausch30]

I was looking for a 24" widescreen LCD. I want it to be a capable gaming monitor and these are the two I've kind of decided on. If anyone has any experience with either of these or any others around this price range I might want to consider I would appreciate your feedback.


Samsung

BenQ

 

[mcain591]

Go for the Dell 24inch.

 

[ausch30]

I've seen reviews which place both of these monitors ahead of the Dell

 

[proof]

I have dual Dell 24" at work. They are some of the best monitors I have ever seen. Never had a good experience with Ben Q monitors.

 

[ausch30]

Thanks, I've never owned BenQ but I have read good things about them I'm kind of leaning toward either the Samsung or the Dell. I've been looking at a lot of reviews and there are good and not so good for both.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

I got a Dell 2707 widescreen yesterday and really like it. Image is a bit pixelly up close but under normal viewing distances it looks great. However I paid 2x what the 24" costs 🙁 Haven't played any games on it yet but plan to this weekend. Supposed to have a 6ms GTG response so there shouldn't be noticeable ghosting.

 

[ausch30]

Let me know what you think after some gaming. From my research on the subject it seems that 19in LCD's are in their full maturity and larger screens and widescreens are still a generation or two away.

Since it's close to the end of Q1 2007 and there haven't been any real significant product releases since C2D I feel that within the next month or two there should be some really attractive new products coming out and I might just wait for them.

 

[strangestranger]

pixelated, what do you mean. are you using it at its native res and displaying a native res picture when it looks pixelated. if you are looking at a stretched wall paper then it will be interpolated.

oh and to the OP. my 2405FPS is fine for gaming to my eyes at least. i have been using it for around a year and no complaints. also note that dell's use samsung panels last time i checked so also consider connection types and the stand. make sure you can adjust where the monitor is otherwise it might not be comfortable to look at.

i hav not tried the 2407 but can say that dell do make a good widescreen or samsung do depending on how you look at it.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

pixelated, what do you mean. are you using it at its native res and displaying a native res picture when it looks pixelated.

Yes, 1920 x 1200 with the XP inf and icm files installed. What I mean is that I can see individual pixels at 18" distance, but not at 30" which is normal distance on my corner desk arrangement. Of course I knew that before buying it so it wasn't a surprise. My brother has two 2407s and I can't see pixels even at 18" (same native resolution).

I'm impressed with the fit and finish of the Dell - by far the nicest monitor I've seen. I like the cable management in the stand setup. And the picture is quite stunning - just spent a couple hours playing NWN. Not much backlight bleedthrough, no dark corners and the colors are rich, no ghosting I can notice, and absolutely no dead or stuck pixels 😀 . That was the first thing I did when I took it out of the box - set Windows background to black, blue, red, yellow, green and then white looking for stuck pixels, since Dell only gives you 21 days to return it no questions asked...

This monitor uses the S-IPS panel and the new backlights for the 92% color gamut.

Still, I think a good price would have been $999 instead of the $1299 Dell wants for it. After all, it's only 3" bigger than the 2407.

 

[strangestranger]

you must have extremley good eyes then because i can't really see the individual pixles a few inches away. are you sure your image is a native res image? i can't imagine the pixels would be that much bigger.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

The OSD says 1920 x 1200 60 Hz so yes I'm fairly certain its in native res mode .

 

[strangestranger]

im meaning the windows desktop or game that you are viewing not the actual monitor res. is the photo or background you use originally tooken at 1920 x 1200 res or is it stretched to fit?

just in case it isn't this is an excellent plce to get widescreen wallpapers

http://www.modalogica.com/default.aspx?mode=files&LibraryID=23

 

[ausch30]

You guys really make a compelling argument for the Dell. I've looked at quite a few reviews and this one pits the two against each other.

24 inches: The Dell 2407WFP vs. the Samsung 244T

According to this review they're pretty much dead even. I do like the card reader on the Dell, I might be swinging that way.

 

[Traveller]

no ghosting I can notice ... monitor uses the S-IPS panel and the new backlights for the 92% color gamut.

Sounds like Dell's using similar panels used by NEC's larger 90s monitors. Their 26" is an IPS w/ wide gamut CCFL tubes (see BEHardware for exact details). Their panel is however rated at 8ms and per BEHardware, not particularly geared towards to gaming / movie playback...

Id be very interested to know how you Dell deals with DVDs, thanks

 

[strangestranger]

don't know about his dell but mine is fine for dvd's. of course i think the black to black rating on mine is 16ms so i have no idea why the newer ones would be bad. JMO of course.

 

[mythos]

A mini review of the Dell 2407 for you.

At first, I really loved it, as the screen size is awesome and the resolution really something to behold.

And for regular uncritical activities, it's just fine.

Two things, though:

1) It needs some serious colour calibration to get rid of it's tendency to overemphasize the reds, you would be wise to also invest in a colour calibration tool.

2) This thing sucks for dvds, because the black levels are atrocious. I've played with brightness and RGB values and whatnot until I Was blue in the face, and I couldn't figure out a way to get nice black levels out of this thing. It's terrible.

This is not so noitceable in games, but for example, watching a series such as HBO's "Rome", where a lot of stuff happens at night/in the dark - it's really painful. 🙁 Like really painful - the backlight bleeds through any dark areas and you can barely see what's going on.

If anyone knows any good setting to fix this / any settings for it in general that work well, please let me know!

 

[ausch30]

Thanks for the review. I think I might be leaning back toward the BenQ FP241W. I know Proof posted having never had luck with Benq but every review I've read puts it well ahead of the Dell.

 

[Traveller]

... think I might be leaning back toward the BenQ FP241W...

For what it's worth, I'm looking at the FP241W too. Reviews are favorable and the price is right, particularly since the other monitor I'm interested in is a much more expensive Eizo S24111W. A bit apples & oranges though, as it's pitting a movie-playback-friendly P-MVA against a more color-accurate (but less motion-friendly) S-PVA.

The SA-IPS seems to be the only "fast" IPS panel and I only know of the NEC 20WGX2 which is a few pixels shy of 1920x1200... 😉

 

[fazers_on_stun]

😳 My bad. I meant the display not the image - I noticed some jaggies and visible pixels up close in text such as IE7 or system fonts. Otherwise it's fine .

BTW thanks for the link to the hi-res wallpaper site - I got tired of the green hill pix that comes standard on XP

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Their panel is however rated at 8ms and per BEHardware, not particularly geared towards to gaming / movie playback

The 2707 is rated 6 ms GTG and 16 BTW. I've been playing Neverwinter Nights all weekend on it (my wife is threatening divorce already ) and so I haven't played any DVDs on it. I'll try a couple of "dark" movies and let you know.

I really wanted to hold out for the LED backlight technology but it's probably gonna be a couple years before they're reasonably priced.

 

[strangestranger]

regarding jaggy fonts and the like, have you tried smoothing them in the appearance tab of the display options. also does pressing control and +/- while viewing web pages make any difference?

 

[jaguarskx]

I would go with the BenQ. There have been some very favroable reviews of it.

Call me superficial, but I hate the base on the Samsung.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

I was doing some work@home yesterday (my company lets me work one day a week from home, using VPN to access their network) and taking a break with the new computer, when the Dell started going whack-o. It had started earlier in the week by occasionally blanking out the screen for less than a second, which really picked up yesterday morning, and then around lunchtime it went berserk. I recycled the power, switched monitors to confirm it was the dell and not my new rig, tried the VGA port, etc etc and then went online to chat with tech support (some guy in India of course ). Anyway he ordered a new one which arrives tomorrow, and dell gives me 10 days to return the old one. Pretty decent support IMHO so that defused a lot of my anger over a $1200 piece of equipment going belly-up in a week.

Funny, this is the 2nd dell monitor I've had to go bad inside a week of service, with just about the same symptoms. The first one was a 21" that my company owns so all I had to do was haul it into work and exchange for a new one with the CIO dept. All these monitors are made in China according to the label. Think dell should switch back to a Taiwanese manufacturer or Mexico - it's gotta be the high-voltage driver on these things that is going bad.

When the new one arrives tomorrow I'm gonna stress-test it all weekend to make sure it doesn't crap out too. Yesterday was the warmest day of the year to date here in DC (over 80 degrees) so I'm wondering if the temp had anything to do with it - the monitor back was fairly warm when it quit working, but that is probably due to the backlights.

As to your post, yes I had cleartype set in XP (dunno what the equivalent is in Vista64). What is the CTRL +/- in IE for? In IE7 I can use shift and the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in/out in web pages so I'm guessing what you said is similar.

BTW, the base on the Dell is beautiful - black polished chrome or something . Matches my NZXT black aluminum case with the silver shield (the dell has a siilver stand). Nothing like lookin' good when your crappin' out

 

[mcain591]

Trust me, it aint the heat. I am in arizona, and during the summer the room that my system is in gets up to 83degF, with AC on.

But for people such as you who are used to nice weather, I understand.
Too bad the one time that I went to the east coast the humidity was up in the 80%'s, with 90degF heat. :twisted:

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Trust me, it aint the heat. I am in arizona, and during the summer the room that my system is in gets up to 83degF, with AC on.

I agree - the monitor istelf gets pretty warm with the CCFL and electronics - think it uses 250 watts average but I already packed up the manual so this is only a guess .

I have 3 desktops and 2 laptops in the one bedroom I use as an office, and although I have never had all of them going at once I have had 3 chugging away simultaneously. Saves a lot on the gas bill during the winter here . The new rig is a homebuilt QX6700 with an 8800GTX and 4 disk drives, so it makes for an efficient space heater as well ...